Most recently, we have learned of the last minute “postponement”by Saudi Arabia of their unseemly and untimely plans for a huge “cultural festival” in Ottawa on May 18-21st. Billed as a showcase for Saudi dancing, cuisine, calligraphy, and Saudi-Canadian relations, one can be sure that seminars on the brutal Saudi justice system (with its ghastly array of beheadings, floggings, and stonings) would not have been on the agenda of this free public event.

We must contrast that bit of good news with the bombshell in Wednesday’s Globe and Mail in the form of a commentary by veteran Middle East expert and retired Canadian diplomat Michael Bell: “Canada’s new strategy pays off with a seat at the Syria table”. However able a commentator Bell may be, his argument that we need to sell weapons to Saudi Arabia in order to have a seat at the Syrian peace talks is so misguided as to take one’s breath away.

Canada has played a valuable role in past negotiations precisely because we were an honest broker, able to see things from all sides, not a “yes man” for our heavyweight allies.

What possible use are we at the Syrian peace talks if we cannot propose anything that Saudi Arabia might dislike? – asks RI President Peggy Mason

We do not have the “hard power” leverage of the United States, Russia, the UK, and France—all permanent members of the UN Security and all major arms dealers—and that is precisely our “soft power” value in proposing solutions that have the greatest chance of working for everyone.

It is also absurd to suggest that sales of Canadian LAVs to Saudi Arabia are necessary to shore up the House of Saud. Rather than yet another sell-out for Saudi cash, what is actually needed is a country with the courage to support President Obama’s none-too-subtle message in his recent Atlantic Magazine interview that the only real way forward for the Kingdom is if it starts to take reforms more seriously at home and co-existence with Iran to heart in the region.

Canada has nothing to offer at the negotiating table as an echo of the big boys who argue that human rights matter when they are violated by the other side’s allies but are irrelevant when grossly violated by our own.

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The Russian [nuclear] modernization program was spurred by the US withdrawal, under President George W. Bush in 2002, from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, which Moscow had for four decades regarded as a central pillar of strategic stability. Moscow’s subsequent failure to reach a new agreement with the United States on missile defenses, and the collapse […]